My Year in Books 2025

[DNF] means did not finish. Usually a bad sign. [R] means a re-read.

My Goodreads.

In Progress

• Barling, Julian. Brave New Workplace. I've only just started this. The content is great, but the book is surprising for its poor editing.
• Barling, Julian. The Science of Leadership.
• Carney, Mark. Value(s). I cannot imagine Trudeau or Poilievre writing something like this.
• DeLong, Brad. Slouching Towards Utopia.
• Hemingway. For Whom the Bell Tolls.
• Kahn, David. The Codebreakers. If, at ~1,000 pages, this seems overwhelming, read Singh's The Code Book instead. But if you want the deets, this is the one and only.
• [R] Rippetoe, Mark. Starting Strength, 3rd Ed. A re-read in that I have a well-worn copy of the second edition that has been my main lifting bible for many years (alongside Jonathon M. Sullivan and Andy Baker's The Barbell Prescription, now that I am an Old). I bought the third edition mainly because it describes the so-called "Press 2.0" exercise.
• Watkins, Michael D. The First 90 Days.

The Stand Outs

• Didion, Joan. South and West. As always, you can never go wrong with Joan.
• Wooldridge, Adrian. The Aristocracy of Talent. The history of, and current state of, the meritocratic ideal, and how we can address its weaknesses and failures. Lazy thinkers equate imperfect systems with failed systems and aggitate to throw the whole thing out. "All systems are artificial."—Forrest E. Morgan, Living the Martial Way. Our task is to find the best of the imperfect systems (democracy, meritocracy), and to find ways of mitigating their weaknesses.

YMMV

• Rubin, Jay. The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories. Not my cup of tea.